Can I control the width?

General talk
1

I’m new in OSM so excuse me if this question has been answered before.

I’m laying out a street nearby the place where I live that is, basically, a steps of about 20 meters width. When I use the tag “highway = steps” it turns into, hardly, a ladder, and the tag 'width = 20" doesn’t seem to work in this way. Question is, of course, Can I control the width ?

Thank you in advance for your help.

2

highway=steps + width=20 describes steps of 20 meters width. If that’s what you want to map, you’re done at this point.

Deciding how that knowledge will be represented in the map is the task of the renderer software’s rules. Not all information will be used by all renderers: For example, many renderers don’t use “real” widths, but instead base the displayed width on street type and zoom level. But that’s ultimately a decision of whoever designs the style of that particular rendering, and it’s not something that mappers can (or, indeed, should) control for individual ways.

3

Thank you Tordanik for your quick answer, it’s clear now.

4

I have a similar question. I am trying to map three disused bridges from a railway yard that has been developed into a shopping center. The bridges carried several tracks and are therefore quite wide. They no longer have any tracks on them and the plan is that shops/stores will be built on them as part of the development. You can see my current attempt at mapping them - and if you turn on edit you can see the bridges themselves.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=38.840839&lon=-77.050965&zoom=18

At the moment I created the bridges as a landuse=brownfield. This shows the bridges above the river which is correct. However, the trails alongside the river render above this representation of the bridge when in fact the trails run under the bridges. Also - when represented this way the bridges are only rendered by Mapnik - at least for the standard renderers on OpenStreetMap.org.

One alternative would be to map the bridges as a highway or other kind of way. But then there would be the problem of how to represent the width of the bridge.

Part of the problem is that though these were built as a way they now are effectively a piece of land.

Thanks for any suggestions.

5

Cheshire: perhaps railway=abandoned bridge=yes area=yes?

6

In my opinion they are not land but part of artificial constructions above land. Thus I propose “building=yes” together with “layer=1” to describe that it is above the land, river/coastline and trail.